Questions tagged [wallet-security]
Questions about keeping wallets and e-wallets safe.
170
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Is it safe to reuse a Bitcoin address?
Besides the obvious privacy implications, and (according to a bitcointalk.org forum post) the fact that once an address is used your coins that rest on it safety depend entirely on the ECDSA safety (...
17
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4
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What are the risks of using Strongcoin.com as an online wallet?
Strongcoin claims it is "The Safest way to store your Bitcoins. The only Bitcoin e-wallet service that's not vulnerable to security breaches. Your Bitcoin keys are encrypted in the browser."
...
9
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2
answers
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How can Trezor update firmware but never receive malware?
I understood from What is it about a Trezor that means it can't be infected by malware? that a Trezor would only interpret data as transaction details, but the Trezor also updates firmware. How is it ...
9
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4
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I'm new to Bitcoin, how do I keep my bitcoins secure?
With the recent rally and media attention, lots of new people joining the Bitcoin community.
A lot are asking:
I'm new to Bitcoin, how do I keep my bitcoins secure?
and if they aren't that's the ...
8
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3
answers
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What stops a wallet from stealing bitcoins?
I'm not particularly knowledgeable on the topic of cryptocurrencies so it's possible that I've missed something obvious, but I still wonder what it is that stops a wallet from stealing from you. ...
8
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1
answer
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Should I share my seed phrase to earn airdrop tokens?
Someone on Face Book said I could earn free crypto by appying for an airdrop. He told me to download Blockchain from app store to my phone. I did this and created my account with a password. I also ...
8
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2
answers
704
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Can a closed source wallet ever be completely trust-less?
Open source Bitcoin wallets are clearly in demand for obvious reasons. Users want to know what the code is intended to do and what may be possible.
Is it even possible for closed source wallets to ...
7
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2
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BIP32 recommends a 256 bit seed. Why do most Bitcoin wallets only use a 128 bit seed?
According to BIP32's "Master key generation" section, "256 bits is advised".
See https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki#Master_key_generation
Why did BIP32 consider 256 bits ...
7
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1
answer
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Is it really safe to use vanitygen to generate your unique bitcoin address?
I've been wondering if using vanitygen to create your own bitcoin address with a unique prefix, is safe from being compromise by others? I'm currently using a shared wallet address from a trusted ...
6
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1
answer
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Alert Key Compromised, upgrade required
I just got this message: "Alert key compromised, upgrade required".
How urgent is this? Am I in danger of losing my Bitcoin?
What do I do?
6
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What is the most secure operating system that I can use to store bitcoins without having to fear a hacker stealing them?
What is the most secure operating system that I can use to store bitcoins without having to fear a hacker stealing them?
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Which exchanges support U2F authentication? [closed]
I got myself a nice security key (Yubico Fido) today, which utilises the U2F protocol. But to my surprise not a single Bitcoin exchange seems to support this yet, only Google itself.
So which ...
5
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3
answers
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What did I do wrong that caused me to lose bitcoin?
I've been accumulating bitcoin into a paper wallet for a couple weeks. It's all been stolen. I'm trying to figure out what I did wrong:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/...
5
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2
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Can a clever hacker still steal everyone's money from the blockchain.info wallet?
Blockchain.info claims:
We cannot (and don't want to):
View your balance
View your address book
Make transactions on your behalf
Confiscate your wallet
Lock you into our service.
...
5
votes
1
answer
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Hardware wallet teardowns and side channel attacks
Most of the popular hardware wallets appear to be based on well established open source cryptography.
Which hardware wallets have been submitted to extensive teardowns and side channel attack ...
4
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3
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How can I safely store and trade Bitcoin and other crypto currencies?
How can I safely store Bitcoin?
Exchanges require me to deposit to trade, is this safe? If I can't trust exchanges, what is the best way to safely store my cryptocurrency and transact it?
4
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1
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Would it be wise and extra secure to use non-ascii characters in a brain wallet?
What are some pitfalls if you use non-standard ascii characters in your brainwallet? Say if you were to use asian language characters? Or even extended ascii characters (http://www.theasciicode.com.ar/...
4
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Should I put my bitcoin wallet on an encrypted disk or not?
Is it really beneficial to put my bitcoin wallet on an encrypted disk (LUKS encrypted)?
4
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5
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520
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Store Bitcoins offline
I have some bitcoins and ether at Blockchain.info and I am really scared of losing them.
How do I best secure them? Right now I have a paper with the code to restore my wallet, but my coins are still ...
4
votes
2
answers
492
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What multi-sig wallets are there for Android/Jolla?
TL;DR: What wallet apps are there for android (or sailfishOS) that has "true" support for multisig?
Requirements/rationale
Thinking a bit, if I'm to possess serious amounts of bitcoins, I want a ...
3
votes
3
answers
4k
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What can you do with the private key?
I am trying to understand all security regarding blockchain and bitcoins.
Let's say you have a bitcoin wallet which is secured, only you know the private key. This bitcoin address was created on one ...
3
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4
answers
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Is holding funds in a Bitcoin paper wallet safe?
If you received lots of bitcoins, like 100, and you are not comfortable holding them in your personal blockchain wallet, is it preferable to move them and hold them in a paper wallet for safety ...
3
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2
answers
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What are the best practices for managing empty, unwanted wallets?
If I have a deterministic wallet which previously held bitcoin but is now empty and is no longer needed, what information should I keep? I think there are three options:
keep nothing
keep the master ...
3
votes
2
answers
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Why is it bad to split up a wallet seed redundantly?
I have been reading a lot about wallet security and this seems to be universally considered a bad idea (see for example this video or this answer), but I am struggling to see why it is not a good ...
3
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1
answer
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My blockchain.info wallet was hacked. How can I create a double send to foil the attacker?
This is the transaction.
https://blockchain.info/address/1F8EP97jgQx8QD6XMRg2bCHHrJrZEMUTRt
Which is still unconfirmed.
I am trying to use https://coinb.in to create a double spend transaction with ...
3
votes
1
answer
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Why can't a longer key combat quantum computers?
Google's new quantum computer performed a calculation in 3.5 minutes that would have taken 10,000 years on a normal computer (so they claim: https://www.space.com/quantum-computer-milestone-supremacy....
3
votes
1
answer
735
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Are vanity addresses Vanitygen generated really safe to use?
I’m not talking about whether Vanitygen can crack an any existing wallet or not. I know it is practically impossible, considering the computational resources required.
But what if, it’s to crack ...
3
votes
2
answers
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Bought a used ledger nano s from Amazon / Ebay. How do you factory reset the Ledger Nano S?
I just bought a used ledger nano s from amazon and ebay. What is the best method of wiping this device and factory reset it? What are some other precautions before using this used device?
3
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1
answer
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How can Bitcoins be sent without Blockchain.info knowing your private key?
Blockchain.info is a hybrid bitcoin wallet with client-side javascript encryption. I understand that the wallet.aes.json where the private keys are stored is encrypted (client-side). But how can ...
3
votes
1
answer
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Why one would need *extended* public keys for auditing a bip32 wallet?
(I am reading the bip32 for an altcoin development.)
In the bip32 specification, it is written that listing all incoming and outgoing payments of a hierarchical deterministic wallet would required ...
3
votes
1
answer
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Is there a hardware wallet project that plans to add multisig capabilities?
What I want: A hardware wallet that I don't need to trust.
That wallet will hold one out of three keys in a 2-of-3 multisig scheme. The other two parties will be a paper wallet I create, and a ...
3
votes
1
answer
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How to check that I control an address
I recently created a bunch of bitcoin addresses (public starting with 1, PK starting with 5) from a paper wallet, that I downloaded from their github (https://github.com/walletgeneratornet/...
3
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1
answer
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Is it feasible to derive the root key of an HD wallet from a large sample of child public keys?
I'm considering the following architecture for a bitcoin-related service:
A BIP 32 HD wallet is created that controls all of the account keys for the web service. The private key is kept in cold ...
2
votes
2
answers
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Is It Possible to Prove Ownership of Public Key Hash without Public Key?
I am building a system where I would like the user to specify a public key hash of a wallet that they have control over in the event of tips, refunds, and/or otherwise needing to send value back to ...
2
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2
answers
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Who store seed phrases data
Seed phrases seem to be pretty secure, approximately as strong as bitcoin private key according to this site https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Seed_phrase.
But who store the private key adresses of these ...
2
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5
answers
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Encrypting wallet manually instead of using hardware wallet
i am new to this community and like to know why one should prefer a hardware wallet instead of using encryption algorithm like AES-256 along with PKDF2 to secure crypto wallets ?
i currently hold btc ...
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answers
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How does crypto exchange secure private keys?
I'm wondering on what is the current common apporach that is used by centralized crypto exchange to secure the private keys of the bitcoin wallets
2
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3
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If the "wallet seed keywords phrase" is all that's needed to restore a hardware Bitcoin wallet, isn't backing that up a nightmare security-wise?
I buy a Trezor. I put all my coins on it. It has me type out the "wallet seed", which is a series of English words in the right order, onto a paper. And maybe I even buy a metallic card ...
2
votes
1
answer
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Blockstream Green Wallet Security
I am trying to understand how secure the green wallet is. I thought of a few scenarios where my funds might be in danger:
If GreenAddress service becomes unavailable, they have a nlocktime ...
2
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3
answers
3k
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Using a dedicated phone as "hardware wallet"
Is there anything inherently insecure about using a dedicated Android phone as a "hardware wallet"?
A dedicated phone implies:
a clean ROM without gapps, e.g. GrapheneOS, Lineage OS without ...
2
votes
1
answer
609
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Are received BTCs really mine?
when somebody send me BTCs I recognize that by seeing a transaction output is equal to my address. But how can I be sure that it's really me and only me who can spend the output?
I can check, I can ...
2
votes
1
answer
4k
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Can you deposit to an unplugged Trezor?
I just want to confirm if my logic is correct. If I send Bitcoin to my Trezor address while the Trezor is unplugged does the web wallet then receive the private keys from the transaction and only once ...
2
votes
2
answers
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If you wanted to privately receive bitcoin from someone, how would you do that?
I do not like to be tracked when receiving or sending bitcoins.
How do you make a secure wallet?
If you wanted to privately get bitcoin from someone, how do you get it?
How do you get the address to ...
2
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1
answer
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From a security standpoint, why might a desktop c-lightning user need an additional lightning wallet?
Many c-lightning tutorials on YouTube walk their listeners through
the process of setting up a c-lightning node followed by the installation of a wallet like Spark-wallet. I just don't get it why do I ...
2
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1
answer
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Why doesn't the Bitcoin-qt client ask for the Wallet passphrase upon startup?
I've just encrypted my wallet.dat file using the "Settings -> Encrypt Wallet" menu option.
I then closed the client and re-opened it.
I was expecting to be prompted to put in the wallet password ...
2
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1
answer
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Mining Bitcoin Wallet's Private Keys Instead of Blocks
Instead of mining Bitcoins directly, couldn't one of these huge processing farms dedicate their processing power to instead discovering the private keys of the largest wallets on the ledger?
I ...
2
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1
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Security risk(s) in running bitcoin core full node
What are the security risks posed by running a full node bitcoin core client? On a typical system, port 8333 is open and all other nodes can actually 'see' my machine and sites like https://bitnodes....
2
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2
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How can I recover my MultiBit HD wallet words?
I have problem with MultiBit HD. Its balance changed to an unconfirmed transaction just like in this bug report.
It appears that I need to use my wallet words to recover the balance, but I have lost (...
2
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1
answer
926
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What is the largest password/passphrase size for a wallet.dat file?
Suppose your wallet.dat file is copied to the wild.
I am working on methods for creating very strong (512bits, hopefully much more) passphrases that would make it unfeasible to either use rainbow ...
2
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1
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2k
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Is there any open source implementation of Bitcoin wallet encryption in Java?
I intend to establish an efficient and secure scheme for protection of wallets. For this , I need source code that implements wallet ecryption as mentioned in https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/...